Welcome to the Leisure section of Orwell Wheelers

With over 650 members Orwell Wheelers caters for a huge variety of cyclists of all experiences and ages. The ethos of the club is to enjoy being out on the bike and to have lots of banter along the way.

The Leisure season is roughly divided into three parts:

Winter (October to March)

During Winter, the club organise formal training spins each Sunday during these months. The spins are categorised into four main groups based on ability and experience. These spins cater for everyone from beginners/improvers to racers, and everyone in between, looking to build up a good base for the season. So there is literally a group for everyone. As the saying goes “Winter miles, Summer smiles”.

Spring/Summer (April to September)

In 2017, we introduced Summer Saturday Spins, these are similar format to the Winter Spins. Please see the Side Bar and the Forum for the routes and spin leader information.

The Summer, this is the business end of the year for most cyclists, whether it is to get out and enjoy a leisurely cycle in the country or to complete a certain sportive or overseas event or take part in a Summer Saturday Spin.

A key aspect of this part of the year are the training groups: Training groups are set for the various sportives: Wicklow 100/200 – Mount Leinster Challenge, and or overseas events, e.g. Marmotte or the Dolomites. If you are interested please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Leisure Challenges (April - August)

There is a Leisure Challenge in here to suit everyone, we think! The Challenges comprise of three optional personal challenges that can help to provide a focus and recognition for your 2017 cycling efforts. The challenge window is between 1st April and 31st August inclusive, i.e. 20 weeks. So it’s you choice: 3 or 2 or 1? How does it work?

Distance Challenge

So challenge yourself to cycling over 20 weeks the equivalent of 7, 12 or 16 Milan-San Remo distances.

Climbing Challenge

So challenge yourself to climb over 20 weeks the equivalent of 20, 30 or 40 Alpes d'Huez.

Additional Training Spins

These are predominately informal but there are typically spins each week on both weekdays and weekends. These are usually all advertised on the Club Forum's Spins Topic so keep an eye out, or advertise your own.

Randonée

The Orwell Wheelers Randonnée is the club's sportive, and also a fund raiser for the Dundrum Arch Club. With nearly 2,350m of climbing over 150km it is a real challenge. For more on this great event see the Randonée page.

Spirit of Leisure

The club would not exist without its members and there are some legends in Orwell Wheelers. To acknowledge the great work of certain individuals people can nominate the person who they believe deserves recognition for helping, encouraging or otherwise improving the experience of people taking part in Orwell Wheelers.

We can be contacted with comments, queries, requests, etc. at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Leisure cyclist of the Year 2014 participation based event kicked off this weekend with the Ardattin 200, as well as several randonée events around the country. Greg Farrell shares his first audax experience below!

While the race reports will be slow to come in from tired riders, one Orwell member recovered well enough from her weekend efforts to share with us the tale of the Étape Rás Mumhan - Ann Horan's account is below!

Update: the Randonnée is full!

The time has come again to see if you are up for the challenge of the Orwell Randonnée and to see if you can add your name to the coveted list of successful participants. In keeping with previous years this year promises to be the event not to be missed!

The Orwell Randonnee is long established on the Irish sportive calendar as one of the toughest but one of the best events there is! This year there was a changing of the guard and new committee members took on the challenge of putting it together. We look back at the event here though the eyes of a few different people to see how the day went for them…